“Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of their existence.” -- Bishop Berkeley

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Monday, April 18, 2005

Ready, Set, Dodgeball!

Many people have been emailing me and saying, "Bob, I heard you and some other profs participated in the first annual Dodgeball Tournament at your college. What happened?!?!" Well, I'll tell you:

The first match pitted us (four guys from the Econ and Business Administration sector, plus two math profs) against a group of punk students. The crowd was amused at (some of) our beer guts and white socks pulled up. The first game started, with a few people getting knocked out on either side. Then, the next thing I know, a ball comes whizzing at me and I can't get out of the way. It slams me right in the crotch and sort of hovers. (The balls--the dodgeballs, of course--were foam with a rubber coating. No pain.) So I automatically grabbed the ball with both arms, thereby eliminating the punk student who threw it.

At this heroic feat, the crowd went, "Ohhhhh!" Then with the same ball, I released an uncatchable volley at the most unathletic looking person on their team I could see. After hitting him in the knee, the crowd was really into it, and the student doing the color commentary (he had a microphone hooked up to the sports complex's speakers) actually said, "Dr. Murphy is taking over!!" (Naturally this was my favorite part of the evening.)

From that point on it was downhill. We won that game, but then lost all the rest. On the bright side, the team that knocked us out went on to win the whole thing. (They were a combo of football, basketball, and baseball players.) Also, they were a big bunch of cheaters. (Seriously, they cheated. But they would've beaten us anyway.)

In sum, I think we did pretty well for a bunch of old-timers. According to my wife, some of the female students in the crowd were particularly taken with one of the math guys on our team. (I assume they found me to be a heart throb as well, and didn't mention it out of respect for my wife.)